University of Vermont College of Medicine faculty members Ira Bernstein, M.D., and Jason Bates, Ph.D., have been named as two of four University Scholars for 2016-17. Led by the UVM Graduate College, the program recognizes “sustained excellence in research, creative and scholarly activities.”
2016-17 University Scholars Jason Bates, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, and Ira Bernstein, M.D., Maeck Professor and Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences (Photo: COM Design & Photography)
University of Vermont College of Medicine faculty members Ira Bernstein, M.D., and Jason Bates, Ph.D., have been named as two of four University Scholars for 2016-17. Led by the UVM Graduate College, the program recognizes “sustained excellence in research, creative and scholarly activities.”
An induction ceremony for the University Scholars was held on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 in Memorial Lounge in UVM’s Waterman building.
Bernstein is professor and John Van Sicklen Maeck Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and medical director of Women’s Health Care Services at the UVM Medical Center. An alumnus of the UVM College of Medicine, graduating in 1983 as an Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society member, he completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University Hospital and then joined the UVM faculty in 1987, completing a maternal fetal medicine fellowship here in 1990. Among Bernstein’s leadership roles are service as director of maternal fetal medicine (MFM) and MFM fellowship training, as well as senior associate dean for research at the College of Medicine. His primary research focuses on the investigation of human integrative physiology and its pathophysiologic variations during the course of pregnancy. Bernstein’s honors include recognition with the Distinguished Academic Achievement Award from the UVM College of Medicine in 2002 and research awards from the New England Perinatal Society, the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine and the Society for Reproductive Investigation. He currently serves on the medical advisory board for the Preeclampsia Foundation and is a member of the Executive Board of the Vermont Oxford Neonatal Network.
Bates, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, served as the interim director of the UVM School of Engineering from 2010 to 2014. He received a Ph.D. in medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and a doctor of science degree from the University of Canterbury for his contributions to the field of lung mechanics. Bates, who joined the UVM faculty in 1999, spent the early part of his career as professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at McGill University. His research – performed both via laboratory experimentation and computational modeling – focuses mostly on the mechanical behavior of the lung in health and disease. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He is also the deputy editor of the Journal of Applied Physiology. Bates has published more than 260 peer-reviewed journal papers as well as 22 book chapters and a textbook, titled Lung Mechanics. An Inverse Modeling Approach (2009, Cambridge University Press). He is also the inventor of the Flexivent ventilator that is used worldwide in the study of mouse models of lung disease.